For My Daughter's Friend

The boy whose father died was not my son.
His father was not my friend, or lover or husband.
I didn’t know him.

I stare at the sparkling prisms on the chandeliers.
At the non-committal color of the walls.
Anywhere but at the face of the boy whose father died too soon.

I couldn’t stand to see my daughter in a casket.
Is it the only act I couldn’t undo?
When she was small, I told her I could accept anything as long as it was the Truth.
Death might be the Truth.
But it would not be a Truth I could easily accept.
And were death to come, I would want her to be somewhere. I realize this, sitting alone in the pew. I would need to be with her. I would need the confirmation of the body. It would make me crazy, but at least there would be no doubt as to the Truth.

Here, in this room, is a Father. Here is a casket. Here is a body. Here is a certain, resolute Truth.

The pastor makes remarks. It is all a pastor can do.
He’s talking about the other side.
The ship is moving away over the horizon.
We on the horizon line mourn the disappearance.
But those in the land where the sun is coming up stand joyfully and shout,
“Here it comes, here it comes.”
This, says the pastor, is Heaven. The father is the ship arriving. Everyone is joyful.
I am not convinced.

I look at the boy across the room, and love him.
I must. It is all I have to offer.
Maybe it will help him, as binding a wound begins the healing, once the nurse has arrived.
More likely, what he needs to survive this loss is a plunge deep into the immutable love of parent and child. Remembering.

This is the contract that cannot be broken.
This is the love that transcends time.
This is what the boy must fathom now, in his deepest grief.